The Presidential Palace of Vietnam, located in the city of Hanoi, was built between 1900 and 1906 to house the French Governor-General of Indochina.

History

It was constructed by Auguste Henri Vildieu, the official French architect for Vietnam. Like most French Colonial architecture, the palace is pointedly European. The only visual cues that it is located in Vietnam at all are mango trees growing on the grounds.

When Vietnam achieved independence in 1954, Ho Chi Minh refused to live in the grand structure for symbolic reasons, although he still received state guests there, and he eventually built a traditional Vietnamese stilt house and carp pond on the grounds. His house and the grounds have been made into the Presidential Palace Historical Site in 1975.

The palace hosts government meetings. It is not open to the public, although one may walk around the grounds for a fee.